Celestia 1.4 FT1.1ish OS X Build 10-13-2005 !!!!!

[BlindedByTheLight]

Well, after some helpful comments from many of you - yes, the usual suspects... Fridger, Hank, Toti (in alphabetical order...) I'm happy to announce I was able to successfully build their 1.4preFT1.1 source code.

It is available at:

stevenbinder.net

A few points... one, I made a few tweaks to the interface, inspired by Dirkpitt's and El Christou's tweaks on the Dirkpitt Build. I also included my usual orbit-lines keyboard short-cuts (until someone implements those in CVS).

And, finally (and miraculously) I was able to get doctorjoe's GO TO space-craft start-time patch to apply. Which means the start and end times for spacecraft appear in the viewer and all one needs to do to "go" their is hit SHIFT-G and you will fly through space and time to the beginning of the spacecraft. Don't know how I lived without that. Hint, hint...

If you download the complete package, you will get my tweaks to Fridger and Toti's version. But for any serious bug testing, you might want to download the APP ONLY file also and use that with the complete package.

And please be sure to mention WHICH version you are using when reporting bugs. Anything to do with rendering galaxies et al... probably goes into Fridger and Toti's bug report link. Anything to do with interface tweaks and keyboards short-cuts (and bizarre random crashing) probably goes in my bug link.

Thanks and enjoy!

[ElChristou]

Many many Tx Steven

[julesstoop]

Thanx Steven!
Downloading it now..

[Cham]

Steven, thanks a lot for your efforts. I downloaded your full package and experimented a bit with it. Until now, it's working very well. However, I have several comments to say, but I'll do it in another thread, because they are not related to the OS X port. See "Celestia users/New Celestia-1.4.0pre-FT1.1 Version for Download".

[alphap1us]

Hi Steven,
Thanks so much for preparing this build. I really, really appreciate it.

Cheers,
Joe

[rthorvald]

Great!
Thank you!

Ehm, here??s a bug report:
If i start Celestia via a Cel script, i get a "Fatal error" message. It says "Error loading data files. Celestia will now quit".

The same script runs fine if i start Celestia first.
This happens with all Cel scripts.

-rthorvald

[t00fri]

Great!
Thank you!

Ehm, here??s a bug report:
If i start Celestia via a Cel script, i get a "Fatal error" message. It says "Error loading data files. Celestia will now quit".

The same script runs fine if i start Celestia first.
This happens with all Cel scripts.

-rthorvald

Including start.cel??

Bye Fridger

[rthorvald]

Including start.cel??

Yes. I made sure to test that one before reporting. I also tested a simple script i wrote myself, with just one line of code, to eliminate all possible sources. It even crashes on this one:

(Entire script):

{
print { text "This is a test" origin "left" column 1 duration 60 }
}

... _Wrote this up here instead of in your thread, since the win/linux versions have been available for some time, so i thought it was spesific to the OSX app.

- rthorvald

[t00fri]

Including start.cel??

Yes. I made sure to test that one before reporting. I also tested a simple script i wrote myself, with just one line of code, to eliminate all possible sources. It even crashes on this one:

(Entire script):

{
print { text "This is a test" origin "left" column 1 duration 60 }
}

... _Wrote this up here instead of in your thread, since the win/linux versions have been available for some time, so i thought it was spesific to the OSX app.

- rthorvald

It definitely is, since I checked that cel scripts work both in Linux and Windows!

Cheers,
Fridger

[rthorvald]

I??m an idiot, and the problem is solved.
Even though i set the FT 1.1 version to open all type "Cel" documents, it still launched Dirkpitt??s version - which i had stashed away in a temporary folder elsewhere. So, it is a bug in OSX, not in FT 1.1. ...

-rthorvald

[BlindedByTheLight]

Anyone else having any problems with the build? Is no news good news?

[BlindedByTheLight]

Just curious if anyone else has noticed the orbit lines seem a little thicker/uglier since the foreground orbit has been fixed?

[BlindedByTheLight]

Just got an PM from Frank Gregorio (fsgregs) requesting some clarification on whether some bugs in the new FT1.1 version are also in the Mac version I compiled - (for use in his eductional activities CD). Specifically...

If you display a DSC object such as a nebula add-on and try to view it, does it still flicker and disappear as you zoom in or approach it?

I have been unable to reproduce this bug. Has anyone else? Moving on...

Folks also reported that the Milky Way is fully visible from the ground on Earth. Fridger is working to eliminate that bug in the Windows version. Is it present in the MAC version?

This I have confirmed is in my version. I'm assuming others can corroborate this? Moving on....

Lastly, FT 1.1 has a new feature that was built into the cvs build in early August by Chris. It is a command line option that enables you to call a different celestia.cfg file upon launch. For example, you can create a shortcut to celestia.exe that reads "celestia.exe --celestia4.cfg" When you click this shortcut, Celestia will launch using the file named celestia4.cfg.

This is enormously useful. You can create a host of cfg files, each specifying different extras folders, different start.cels, etc. Make a shortcut to each, click on the shortcut, and Celestia will launch only the add-ons and extras you want for that particular trip. You don't have to drag files or folders in or out of extras folders ... just use the command line.

I have extensively revised my educational activities to take advantage of the new feature. Does the FT1.1 MAC version have it? (to test it out, create an alternate cfg file, enter the command line, and see what happens).

Any thoughts on this?

[t00fri]

Just got an PM from Frank Gregorio (fsgregs) requesting some clarification on whether some bugs in the new FT1.1 version are also in the Mac version I compiled - (for use in his eductional activities CD). Specifically...

If you display a DSC object such as a nebula add-on and try to view it, does it still flicker and disappear as you zoom in or approach it?

I have been unable to reproduce this bug. Has anyone else? Moving on...

That's good, in Linux it's also absent. It's a pure Windows "feature"...

Folks also reported that the Milky Way is fully visible from the ground on Earth. Fridger is working to eliminate that bug in the Windows version. Is it present in the MAC version?

This I have confirmed is in my version. I'm assuming others can corroborate this? Moving on....

This must occur in all OS versions, since the day-night blending stuff was just not yet implemented in the FT1.1 core code.

Bye Fridger

[BlindedByTheLight]

Thanks Fridger.

Any other Mac users out there know anything about the cfg thing above? I think what he was saying is, there is a way in Windows to create an alias that will instruct Celestia to use a different .cfg file. So you can have multiple aliases that each will instruct Celestia to open with it's own corresponding .cfg file. If that's possible... it'd be news to me - though not surprising since, it seems, I don't know everything...

[alphap1us]

Hi,
As far as I can tell, the optional config file flag is NOT working under Mac OS X 10.4.3. Celestia starts fine under the command line, but including any kind of flag appears to have no effect on what the program actually does. I tested this by typing

Code: Select all

./Celestia --config2.cfg

to point to a config file with some values changed. It didn't report errors and the same resource files seemed to be loaded, so the command lineoption appears not to do anything. Even using things like

Code: Select all

./Celestia --canyouhearme

appears to have no affect.

Cheers,
Joe

[selden]

You have to tell Celestia what information you are passing to it.

The qualifier that tells Celestia that you're providing the name of a different configuration file is "--conf". It should be followed by a space and then the name of the new configuration file.

e.g.

Celestia --conf filename.cfg

[edit]
Other Windows command line qualifiers are
--verbose (followed at the end of the line by a > and the name of a log file)
--fullscreen
--once
--dir (followed by the name of a different Celestia directory)
--extrasdir (followed by the name of a different extras directory)
--url (followed by a Cel:// url or by the name of a cel or celx script file)

Hopefully most of these have been made available in the other versions of Celestia.
[/edit]

[hank]

As far as I can tell, the Mac OS X version of Celestia ignores any command line arguments.

- Hank

[fsgregs]

Hank and Blinded by the LIght and others:

I messed up. To call a command line option in Fridger's FT1.1 version of Celestia, enter this:

--config celestia2.cfg

where celestia2.cfg is calling a different cfg file

In Windows, you first cite the application's name. For example, a command line would read,

celestia.exe --config celestia2.cfg

This can be typed into the run command in the start menu, or attached to the end of a shortcut.

In Linux, and in the new 1.4.0pre7 version of Celestia Windows, the command line option is as Selden indicated. That is:

--conf celestia2.cfg. Chris Laurel dropped the "ig" from the command line. However, it is still present in FT 1.1

Please try it again, if you can. It is VERY important to me to get it working in the MAC version of FT 1.1.

Let us all know the results. Believe me, if it works, it will be a great new tool for a lot of us. I'll explain how and why at that time.



Frank

[BlindedByTheLight]

As far as I can tell, the Mac OS X version of Celestia ignores any command line arguments.

- Hank

Hank, since you're the resident Mac OS X guru... could you give me a little background on this?

As far as my knowledge goes, aliases/short-cuts from the Apple GUI have no "command line" or any tweaking at all you can do with them through the GUI.

The only command line I am aware of is the Unix command line, available solely through the Mac OS X app called "Terminal".

Are you guys say that there is ANOTHER way to create aliases/short-cuts in Mac OS X from THIS command line that will, in theory, behave as you are saying?

Thanks